High end at a real world price

High end at real world price

Wow, what a week I have had! A Kronos in my den, I couldn't believe it myself. For the informative audio folks, Kronos is the hottest turntable at the current moment could be a little understated. Best sound award comes raining where Kronos serves at front end, that's phenomenal.

Spot on

Superiority in any aspect always comes at a price and there is a cost basement to achieve that level of performance, Kronos is not excluded. "High end at real world price" still cost a lot for the middle income group, sigh. Those who own it, good for you while those who live from hand to mouth, a real world fantasy. To add insult to injury, you need to spend much much more to better Kronos, unless Kronos honcho decides otherwise. Who knows what Louis has in his sleeves?

Sparta to feed my somewhat lowly configured system, that's a blatant system as some would call it a dragon head with mouse tail, chirping an overly imbalance system. Victor brought his Sparta to my den, he is moving for the kill! A move that I'm well aware of, but the temptation is too great to resist .....

ZYX Premium Omega

Let me walk you through the costing, full Sparta turntable USD21500 with Halena arm USD6500, ZYX Premium Omega USD7000 MC cartridge, Nagra VPS tube phono stage USD8500 and Skogrand RCA phono cable. I got no idea how much the Skogrand costs but you could figure the ball park figure. Setting up was a breeze, Victor didn't go for the optimum, neither was I with the room acoustics. Further optimization takes time, we all know that too well.

Nagra VPS phono stage

First needle contact opened with hoo and ha, the baptism of vinyl begins. The sound was so easy on ears, the famous polymeric flavour that make folks return to analogue. Man! CD's spikes and glares are a sharp contrast. I constantly struggling with CD before settling down to listen, every time, vinyl is free of that. Texture of vinyl, OMG, wanting to be had. Smooth and rounded, in a good way. "Fluidity" could never be better exemplified. And this strange quality miraculously draws you into the music, readily urging you to crank the volume up. Now, some of us crank up to crazy volume to attain greater head room, greater presence. Flow with the groove as some may say.

The enormous energies across the whole frequency response courtesy of vinyl were staggering, indeed, it does a better job filling and loading the room. Bass is something that once you have it, you will never want it without, it serves the critical music foundation. Shaking my head in disbelief, the bass from vinyl is fulsome, tuneful and digs deep. Not particularly tight due to tube phono. What a treat for bass lover, the roll off would be from your system. But take this with a pinch of salt since I don't have others for comparison. I urge you to do your homework if you are serious.

Up to this point, I am glad to have Sparta in my system to acquaint what it capable of. Unmistakably, the sound emanated from my speakers possesses the rightness, to let my guard down and be submissive. Listen and stop analyzing the sound.

No test is complete without voices, Sparta was faithfully abstracting what on the vinyl, as you well aware of different pressings attribute different tonal balance. Different voices, skeletal, lush, thin, feminine, muscular, pitchy or husky, no hint of homogenization. True color, this is a hallmark of great turntable. No colouration is being add onto, you probably know that many turntables are not free of that.

The presence and spatial separation, Sparta has it covered. The images are swathed around with ozone, depicting the sense of spaciousness. Say Scott Hamilton on his sax, brassy, air velocity modulation, breathing and the pungency of notes, is presented. I'm sorry, the magic is either in the recording or not, that's why folks are paying top money for the promise of first pressing.

Victor listened for a good 4 hours the first day and returned for another 2 and a half hour the following day. He played loud with no regard to my small room to a point my amp was sucked dry especially on the demanding passages. Readers here know I'm a civilized listener. Victor left my den with a glow on his face, a gesture of satisfaction or wasted electric, perhaps? Is it me or what? I didn't know and I didn't bother to ask. All I care is me, and my listening pleasure. For the record, we played Kid Chan, Sarah McLachlan, David Fagan, Bill Wither, Kyung Wha Chung to Beethoven Symphony No. Five. 

"Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!" sum ups my feelings. Sparta showed me what a high end analogue can do and what's the revival of vinyl is about. My heart sunk the day Sparta leaves my den, Sparta was sourly missed. Sparta should be in your audition list if your budget within the range. Heartily recommended.